{"id":117,"date":"2018-05-01T00:41:12","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T05:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/?p=117"},"modified":"2018-05-01T11:10:35","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T16:10:35","slug":"ernest-hemingways-the-killers-fidelity-and-expansion-in-film-adaptation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/ernest-hemingways-the-killers-fidelity-and-expansion-in-film-adaptation\/","title":{"rendered":"Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers: Fidelity and Expansion in Film Adaptation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adaptation is a contentious term when it comes to translating a beloved piece of literature to the silver screen. Upon an announcement that a certain source material is being adapted into the film medium, devout fans of that particular material begin conjuring their interpretation of that story; how it will play on screen, what elements will remain, what actors will play their favorite characters, etc. Rarely does a movie adaptation marry itself to every minute detail of its former medium. Adaptation is meant to instill a viewer with an enlightened sense of what made the original story so encapsulating, and that sometimes means cutting \u201cmeat\u201d from the original story in order to make its cinematic counterpart flow more coherently.\u00a0 In the movie adaptation of Ernest Hemingway\u2019s\u00a0The Killers\u00a0<\/i>(1946, dir. Robert Siodmak), much of the original story remains intact, with only slight trimming or inconsequential altering to the dialogue.\u00a0 But rather than mirroring and bloating Hemingway\u2019s original narrative and placing the entire film within the confines of a lowly diner, director Robert Siodmak and crew use the original story as a gateway to a film noir narrative of deceit and resignation.<\/p>\n

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Ernest Hemingway’s name in the title denotes the level of authorship he possessed during production<\/p><\/div>\n

Both stories begin the same: two men, wearing similarly dark outfits and derby caps, enter a diner as the sun begins to settle. They study their surroundings, as though they are looking for something\u2026 or rather, someone. They sit and order from the menus in front of them. Comically, everything they attempt to order is part of the \u201cdinner menu,\u201d which won\u2019t be served until six o\u2019clock (it is five, but the clock is 20 minutes fast\u2014much to their chagrin).\u00a0\u00a0\u201cEverything we want\u2019s the dinner, eh? That\u2019s the way you work it\u201d (Hemingway 1), says one of the men, later identified as Max.<\/p>\n

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Men in black: the colors of the antagonists’ outfits represent their level of power<\/p><\/div>\n

Immediately, based on this small interaction, the readers and viewers of both respective works are notified that these men are not to be trifled with. They\u2019re here on business, they clearly have a thorn to pick with someone, and most of all, they\u2019re on a wire; any inconvenience will result in misery for those around them. In both works, it is undeniable that these men are up to no good. In Hemingway\u2019s short story, the reader picks up on this based on the dialogue alone. In Siodmak\u2019s film, it is based not only on the dialogue, but also on how the Max and Al are visually represented. Clad in black and wearing the same displeased looks on their faces, while also being clumped together to make the black-and-white film even darker, these two men are the dominant force in the diner\u2014a specter in this otherwise bright, shiny, and safe location. While this could\u2019ve easily been written into the original story\u2014which is no way a slight against Hemingway\u2019s skills as a writer\u2014the visual interpretation is more visceral and intimidating.<\/p>\n

As expected, Max and his partner Al usher two of the diner\u2019s occupants\u2014customer\u00a0Nick Adams and cook Sam\u2014into the back against their will while Max remains with server George to inquire about the location of one Ole Anderson. Here is where, arguably, the biggest deviation occurs between the film and the short story. Whereas in the original story Max is forthcoming about his intentions\u2014\u201cWe\u2019re going to kill a Swede. Do you know a big swede named Ole Anderson?” (Hemingway 2)\u2014his cinematic counterpart adds an element of mystery and extends the plot in what initially appears to be an insignificant way, but later turns out to be a whole a new element not found in Hemingway\u2019s short story.<\/p>\n

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“We’re going to kill a Swede”<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll tell what\u2019s gonna happen,\u201d says Max. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna kill a Swede. Do you know a big Swede that works over at that filling station?\u201d he asks George, gesturing to the unseen gas station across the street.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean Pete Lund?\u201d an apprehensive George asks.<\/p>\n

Smoking a cigarette and casually aloof in his demeanor, Max replies, \u201cIf that\u2019s what he\u2019s calling himself\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

This difference in approach suggests to the viewers of the film that Ole is more guarded about his identity than in the short story. This version of Ole is hiding from a past that he wishes would stop following him. In the short story, none of this present; Ole is well-known and seems to be content with that fact.<\/p>\n

From here, the plot of the film carries out the rest of the short story\u2019s narrative largely unchanged: Max informs George that the nature of his and Al\u2019s ire is strictly business. Al ties up Nick and Sam while George informs Max that Ole\/Pete isn\u2019t coming. (It should be noted, however, that in the short story George provides no reason why Ole isn\u2019t coming, whereas in the film he says it\u2019s because \u201cPete\u201d always comes before six o\u2019clock and never after.) Max and Al eventually accept George\u2019s revelation and leave the diner. George then unties Nick and Sam, only for Nick to run for Ole\/Pete and warn him that two men are after him for unspecified reasons. In both cases, with almost-startling literary accuracy, Ole\/Pete is resigned to his fate. He lies in bed, still in his day clothes, and stares absent-mindedly at the wall, never meeting Nick\u2019s gaze.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m through with all that running around,\u201d Ole\/Pete says after Nick asks if he’s going to run, or at least go to the police. \u201cThanks for coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Ole resigns himself to his fate and awaits his inevitable end<\/p><\/div>\n

Nick leaves and here the film begins its complete deviation and foray into originality. Where the short-story transports the reader back into the diner and the reader is left wondering about Ole\u2019s fate, the film stays with Ole\/Pete. He continues to stare into the ether and rubs his face with morbid anticipation. Moments after Nick\u2019s exit from the room, he hears something\u2014a creak. Max and Al scurry up the stairs toward Ole\/Pete\u2019s rented room. He sits up and stares at his door. Suddenly, the door crashes open and the fiends shoot Ole\/Pete until dead. The camera focuses on his bruised right hand as it slowly loses its grip of the bed post.<\/p>\n

Siodmak and his team of writers\u2014Richard Brooks, Anthony Veiller, and John Huston\u2014saw an opportunity to not just adapt an already-absorbing story of vengeance and resignation to fate. Rather, they saw\u00a0The Killers<\/i>\u00a0as the beginning to a larger, untold story. Had they detained themselves to the single setting of the original story, it is without a doubt that they would\u2019ve been obligated to not only change Hemingway\u2019s casual dialogue, but add to it and ultimately change what made the story so intriguing. This is a rare example of an adaptation that remains faithful to its source material while adding the filmmakers\u2019 own flair and ideas. Granted, it is not often filmmakers find themselves in the environment to create additional content to a prolific writer\u2019s work. This is unfortunate, because in the case of\u00a0The Killers<\/i>, its movie adaptation doesn\u2019t take away the charm of the story, but enhance the reading experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adaptation is a contentious term when it comes to translating a beloved piece of literature to the silver screen. Upon an announcement that a certain source material is being adapted into the film medium, devout fans of that particular material begin conjuring their interpretation of that story; how it will play on screen, what elements […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,16,15,8],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criticism","tag-1940s","tag-criticism","tag-josh-delarosa","tag-noir"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions\/283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}